Many industrial processes employ a cleaning method where a hand held tacky roller is used to remove and dispose of air borne contaminants from a surface of a panel or substrate prior to further processing. The hand held tacky roller, with its peripheral surface coated with tacky polymer and rotationally mounted in a handle, is passed over a substrate to be cleaned, to lift off the dust and, in the next step, to transfer the contaminants from the substrate to a cleaning sheet for disposal.
The cleaning sheet is typically mounted and held on a flat surface with the adhesive facing toward the operator who, when passing the hand roller over the adhesive, will transfer the collected contaminants to the cleaning sheet. Mounting of the cleaning sheet is sufficiently secure to prevent the cleaning sheet from rolling up on the roller during the cleaning process. Currently used mounting techniques for mounting the cleaning sheet to the flat surface include affixing the cleaning sheet to a work table with masking tape, or placing a bound pad of sheets, e.g. 50 sheets in a pad, in a pad holder which mechanically secures the pad. Such mounting techniques are cumbersome and limited.
The cleaning sheet is typically made either of plastic film or paper coated on one side with adhesive. The surface of the adhesive is protected by a removable liner. Prior to the actual cleaning of the hand roller, the protective liner is removed and discarded. The exposed adhesive of the cleaning sheet has a greater tack level than the tacky cleaning roller and the contaminants are transferred from the polymer coating of the roller to the cleaning sheet. When the cleaning sheet is loaded with contaminants to the point that it loses the ability to accept more dust, it is discarded and replaced with a new one.
Exemplary industrial applications of the tacky roller cleaning is the manufacturing process of printed circuit boards, screen printing, laminating and coating of substrates as well as in any applications where the surface of the substrate needs to be free of dust.